


Rider of the Stellar Winds

by Serriya (Keolah)



Series: Interdimensional Bridge [12]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Eldar, Elves, Gen, Humor, Not Really Character Death, Original Universe, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-12
Updated: 2006-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keolah/pseuds/Serriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Laughing God gives unsolicited life advice. A Windrider elf meets an El'dari vessel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rider of the Stellar Winds

Kyriel stood on the edge of one of the many floating islands high in the clouds that made up much of Hasaris, far above the seas of mist. He gazed off at the blue skies with eyes just as blue, peering out from under a mop of tousled black hair that curled around pointed elvish ears. Although he hadn't been born an elf in this life, he had gotten his form modified after memories of his previous life as the Windrider, Elen the Excellent, started trickling back into his mind.

It was really quite the spectacular view, with the Dragon Isle high above pouring down a waterfall cascading onto Tesfin Isle and spilling from there down toward the surface far, far below. Dragon Isle, naturally, had dragons on it, but they were some ways away as he was currently located on a smaller island some ways from Tesfin itself.

"Nice view, isn't it?" came a voice slightly behind and to one side of Kyriel, "Not thinking of jumping or anything, are ya Kyriel? Psht, nah, course not! Small joke." The being in question was dressed appropriately for the island, if a bit more plainly than might be considered fashionable and is of roughly average height for the elven folk up to the tips of his delicately-pointed ears.

Kyriel smirked a bit. "No, not today. I'd be afraid of what I might catch," he commented offhandedly. "Or what might catch me, at any rate."

"Truth enough, dangerous times and all," the stranger replied easily, moving to the edge and leaning out dangerously over to look down, then backing up a step and looking back up at the sky with a thoughtful expression. He lifted a hand to point into the sky, "See that?"

Kyriel turned to look in the direction that he's pointing, raising an eyebrow. "What?"

"Eh, nevermind," he replied, waving it off dismissively, "Nothing to see, musta been something in my eye. Nothing at all..." he grinned mischievously, "At least not yet." He stretched and walked a few paces, "Ever get tired of where ya are, kiddo? Just get an itch to get out and see something new and maybe relax for a bit?"

"Occasionally," Kyriel muttered. "Hasaris isn't really my home, anyway. Neither is the Plane of Water, even though I grew up there. And I don't think Lezaria is anymore, either." He shrugged a bit.

"Home's a weird concept, really," the odd elf replied with a shrug, "Sometimes it seems a million miles away and other times..." he reached over to touch Kyriels chest, "It's just as close as the heart." At the inevitable look down, he lightly flicked his finger upward to tweak the other man's nose and grinned. "Don't worry about it so much, it's all about where you _want_ to be rather than where you think you _should_ be."

Kyriel chuckled softly. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. After all that's happened, I'd feel kind of weird going back to Lezaria anyway... I'm not really Elen anymore..."

The other looked thoughtful for a moment, as though looking to remember something, then chuckled and shook his head. "You have any idea how much of a pain in the arse the past can be?" he asked, "Just be yourself, that's the best route to take all around, believe it. Biggest joke of the universe is that every purpose and reason that people seem to want to read into it... there isn't one!"

Kyriel wasn't sure what to make of this strange elf, even less so if he were really an elf. But he didn't think it mattered. He wasn't the sort to freak out when someone showed up out of the blue when he was sitting in the middle of nowhere to give unsolicited life advice.

"Well," he amended with a light grin, moving to stand at Kyriel's side and folding his arms, "There's one, sorta, and that's to do what you think is right for you. Be yourself. Be the best damned _you_ that you can be. Really give the stick-in-the-muds a case of heartburn." He looked back up at the sky and hmms, tsks, and shakes his head somewhat sadly.

Kyriel chuckled. "I generally try to be. Who else would I be, really?" Kyriel looked over at him and says, "Something wrong?"

"Hmm?" He looked over. "Nah, nothing wrong, not really, just waiting for a meteor shower they were predicting earlier. Should be along any minute now. Funny things, space and time, endless and yet finite at the same time. All a matter of perspective, I suppose."

"A meteor shower?" Kyriel said, glancing up at the sky again. He shrugged a bit. "The universe might technically be finite, but there's still more in it than any man could expect to see in their lifetime."

"That's the spirit!" the stranger replied with a grin, then leaned nearer and pointed up toward the sky again. "There, see?" A faint, reddish glow could be seen in the upper atmosphere where he was pointing. "Uhm, let's move over here," he said, tugging at Kyriel's sleeve lightly.

"Er... right," Kyriel said, staring at it and moving over there.

The glow grew brighter, nearly a flame tumbling through the outer atmosphere, then cooling until nothing more than a contrail can be seen in its wake. "Hmm," the elf murmured thoughtfully, watching, "Tumbling a bit, that won't do. Ugh, what a mess."

"Meteor shower?" Kyriel said a mite skeptically as he stared at the thing.

"Well maybe not," the elf replied with faint amusement, "Remember that whole space and time thing I mentioned? Well sometimes they're infinite, sometime's they're finite, and sometimes, just sometimes, they kinda throw ya a curveball..." He folded his arms and watched as the 'meteor' grew nearer, a rushing sound of air slowly becoming more audible with each passing moment.

"Yeeeah..." Kyriel drawled. "No kidding..."

Freakish winds buffeted the object from all directions, the supersonic trajectory slowing incrementally as it neared the ground where it would have otherwise impacted like the kinetic strike from space that it was. The elf tsked and shook his head as he walked a little further away, the ground still heaving and groaning as the craft skidded into the ground and along for a good forty feet or so before creaking to a halt.

"Shall we go take a look?" he asked with a quirked brow at Kyriel, then ambled in the direction of the much battered and worse for wear ship. Its skin might have been charred and rent, but even that couldn't take away from the flowing, organic, nearly-living design.

Kyriel frowned a bit and headed over in that direction. "That's no meteor," Kyriel said, stating the obvious in a clear display of excellent observation skills.

"Not a natural one, anyway." The elf nodded in agreement, holding a hand out to test the hull for heat before climbing up along the smooth side toward the bubble-shaped cockpits. "All comes down to the same thing in the end," he added quietly, and sighed lightly as he pried open the rear bubble and gently examined something within.

"What is it?" Kyriel wondered. "Some sort of ... flying machine? What do they call it... space-ship?"

"Yeah, space fighter to be precise," the elf replied absently, then smiled faintly and murmured, "Off with you, then, it's all about the soul in the end and yours can go where it knows to." A shimmering glow flared in the space he'd been looking into, then he moved to open the other with equal care.

Kyriel blinked for a moment at that. He went up and looked over the thing and wondered, "Fighter? It fights space?"

That earned a laugh, and the elf glanced over at Kyriel. "Oh yeah, moisture farmer, you got a lot to learn. C'mere." He gestured to the other. "Get an idea what this whole schtick is about."

Kyriel went over and took a good look at the thing. "Moisture farmer? What? I'm no farmer, but I used to be a pirate... Arr, et cetera."

The elf motioned the other closer, gently as he was cradling a bloodied and burned woman of elven feature, obviously quite gone beyond normal means or magic. "This here's what war's all about, kiddo," he said, gently brushing a strand of clotted hair back from her forehead, "Real bitch when every damn one of em's a hero and you can't do a thing about it really because you promised you wouldn't."

Kyriel looked over at her for a long moment and thought that she might have been beautiful once, if she weren't so very clearly dying if not already dead. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't bring himself to take his eyes off of her.

He sighed softly, "Sorry Silarewiel, that's just how it goes, but hey, you put up one hell of a fight I can tellya that. Chaos never saw it coming, and it was pure blind fucking luck that made it turn out this way." Looking over at Kyriel, he said softly, "Take a good look before you do or think about doing anything, matey, because this is what fighting leads to in the end. Always."

Kyriel murmured softly, "Yes, it does... I died for it once, and they made songs about me and hailed me a hero..." Kyriel grunted. "But in the end..."

"In the end," the elf agreed with a faint smile, "It's still death. There's good ones, and there's bad ones, the trick is in getting the ones that mean something when it comes down to it." He leaned forward to gently kiss her forehead, then whispered something in her ear, a faint glow similar to before appearing around her as the body vanished. 

Kyriel stared sadly for a moment and obliquely wondered just what was going on as that wasn't generally normal activity even for Elkandu.

Sitting down at the curved edge of the cockpit, the elf looked at the other quietly. "So, what brought _you_ out here?" he asked, gesturing to the now-empty cockpit and the slowly-subsiding glow within as he added, "That's what brought me. Favor to a friend of the family, or something like that, even if they might not realize it just yet. Probably does though." He chuckled lightly.

"I was on Lezaria..." Kyriel said. "But after the battles were over and the cleanup underway, I didn't feel there was much point in remaining, so I came back here..."

"Not much of an adventuresome spirit there," he commented, leaning into the cockpit and messing about a bit with a few things inside. "Pretty boring outlook overall if all you're gonna do is head for home rather than going out to find something new to do, know what I mean?"

"Eh, not that this place is really a home anymore," Kyriel murmured. "I suppose really I was just hoping to be a Windrider again, perhaps."

"And why would you want to do something like that, hmm?" came the ready reply, though still tinkering a bit. "All sorts of things to do in this crazy, mixed-up grab-bag of universes, what's so special about that gig?"

"Well... I suppose I was a bit lonely.... and I miss flying..." Kyriel admitted.

"Hmph, being alone's a real bitch alright, could tell you all about it sometime if you had a few thousand years to spare," the elf chuckled and climbed into the cockpit for better access. "And flying beats the hell out of falling, great thing as long as you remember not to combine the two like these two..." He motioned to the ship absently, "Okay, so you wanna fly, but where would ya go? Thought of that?"

"Um.... second star to the right and straight on until morning?"

"Ugh," the elf muttered and scowled as he waggled a finger at Kyriel, "Any more bad quotes and you're in trouble, me bucko." He chuckled and rested his arms on the cockpit's frame, looking out, "Don't have a clue, do ya? Just kinda amblin' around and moping a bit bemoaning fate and whatnot, right? Tsk." He shook his head, "Better than some, I suppose, but not by much."

"Oh, not really. I never particularly found moping to be a particularly productive passtime," Kyriel said.

The elf smirked a bit, "Mm. Well, I can tell ye one thing, ya gotta leave Kansas to find the Wizard. You know," he broke off in sudden amusement, "I find myself enjoying some of the odder references I keep running across around here."

Kyriel smirked. "Although I don't think I much care to go around slaying anymore dragons anytime soon. The poor dragons..."

"Slay the maiden, rescue the dragon," he replied with a grin, "Much safer proposition in the long run, believe you me! Anyway!" he waved it off and cocked a thumb behind him, "Climb in, let's take a look around in the old girl, shall we?"

"Er, okay..." Kyriel tentatively did as directed with a bit of confusion, climbing into the cockpit and peering at it a bit.

The elf merely chuckled and shook his head, sealing both canopies above them and warming the engines. They sound very... bad, at least anyone who recognized how they should sound who heard them would say, but the ragged tempo smoothed out in a few moments to an almost dusky purr. "Attagirl," he murmured, the craft rising to hover a few feet above the ground. "Let's give the farmboy a heart attack, shall we? Lots of fun."

With only that barest of warnings, the ship whirled in place and darted over the nearby cliff and arced up into the sky, shedding the damage it had sustained in reverse motion.

Kyriel absently wondered just what sort of mage this fellow was and wished he didn't suck so much at Seeking. Far from having a heart attack, however, Kyriel is more accurately to say having fun. "Whee!"

Grinning, the elf removed himself from the control interface and allowed what he had made to be take over. The ship seemed not the least inconvenienced by this, beyond a momentary shock, and proceeded to push the engines to the very limit of safety and a little bit beyond to scream out into space. In the vacuum, it whirled and spun in heady patterns, free of the constraints once encountered.

"That's enough," he murmured, though not without some indulgence at the faint disappointment that seemed to come with a steadying flight and a more sedate return to where they started out.

"Wow," Kyriel commented. "It's fast!"

"She," the elf corrected gently, settling the craft to the ground, "And don't forget it or you _will_ regret it. Hell hath no fury..." He chuckled and shook his head, popping the canopies. "Not gonna tell ya the whole of the what or why, you wouldn't understand anyway, but..." Shrugging as he climbed out, adding quietly, "She's yours. I think you're gonna find that there's a bit more to it than being your standard run-of-the-mill, staid and stolid... read: BORING Windrider than they'd think of. Maybe this'll put some wind in some sails someplace. Have to see."

"She, okay," Kyriel said, looking over the ship again. "Wouldn't understand what why?" He cocked his head a bit in confusion.

The elf hopped down off the ship with easy grace, stretching lazily. "Eh, just some old family business, doesn't really matter in the long run to anyone but me and maybe a few others. But you're gonna want to get acquainted, set up the gestalt, and that sort of thing. Lots of fun ahead of you, kiddo. Be good to each other, and don't make me come back here, hear?"

"Well, okay, if you say so..." Kyriel said, circling around the ship giving it a once-over.

The ship was in pristine condition from nose to tail, a sleek and deadly predator of sky and space... though he got the odd impression that it was examining him in return. "Have a seat and you're ready to go," the elf said, his voice echoing a bit strangely at the end and if sought there's no sign of him.

"Okay..." Kyriel said, wondering when Shazmar decided to stop being a little boy, assuming that was Shazmar at least and what the hell he's up to, and went to climb into the cockpit and took a seat.

The node, a crystalling matrix set near his right hand, glowed faintly as he sat in the control couch as though waiting silently for some sign or signal. Kyriel poked at it a bit wondering just what he was suppposed to do.

As soon as he touched it, light flared blindingly and he found himself... somewhere else. The world was a limitless expanse of crackling and swirling energies in varying hues of blue, and he floated midway between 'sky' and 'ground' facing a shimmering and not-quite-distinct humanoid formed of those energies.

"Who are you?" it... she, he recognized from tone and inflection, asked with hesitance and some confusion.

Kyriel blinked in surprise and went, "Whoa, holy shit, what was that?"

The entity emoted clear amusement in his mind, silvery laughter sounding to his ears. "You accessed the node, though..." she paused, looking around with confusion, "Why are we here? Where is..." She trailed off, as though listening to something and it seemed to answer what she had sought. "You are a Windrider, and I am to accompany you!" she finished with bright certainty.

"I--I'm Kyriel, and you are?" he said.

"Silarewiel," she replied readily, offering a bow in greeting, "I apologize for drawing you so far in, it was not intentional and will be far different in the future."

Kyriel said, "Oh, that's--that's quite alright, just surprised me is all, I didn't expect... well, I don't really know what I expected...."

"I'm not sure either," she admitted, "It's strange, but I'll figure it out soon enough. Ready to go?" she asked eagerly, the joy of flight he'd felt earlier echoed clearly from her.

"Ooh, yes, anytime!" Kyriel said eagerly, beaming.

"Then off you go and off we go," he heard briefly, before finding himself returned to his own senses. The ship rose with a deep thrum of power from its rest and turns slowly to pass over the cliff. "You'll have to learn the hard way to do this later," Sila's voice rose easily to mind, "but for now, just feel it, what it means to _be_ the bird in flight... I'll handle the details."

Kyriel relaxed a bit, still familiar with what it meant to be a Windrider even after thousands of years of separation from the fact. He looked to watch as they passed over the floating island again. It didn't really bother him not being in complete control here. A Windrider's first lesson was to be able to trust their lives to their partner.

A throaty chuckle greeted his stoic acceptance and a gentle mental nudge. "You want to fly? Stretch your wings out, Kyriel, feel what it really _means_ to soar." Sila, as though to make an example, took the ship through a series of acrobatic maneuvers, then playfully nudged him again. "Your turn..."

The experience, she knew, would give him a taste of what the agile craft was capable of and its limits. She would act to transform thought to action in the exercise and teach him a bit in the process. The joy of learning to fly indeed.

Kyriel tentatively reached out to try what she's saying, not really understanding this technology thing overmuch.

"Don't worry so much!" Sila chided with chiming laughter. "I won't let any harm come to you or, by extension, me. Just... let yourself go and accept what we can do together, if you really want to."

"I'm--I'm not worried," Kyriel thought. "This is just... different than I'm used to. It's alright." He took a deep breath and relaxed, trying to get a feel for things here.

"In time you'll get a feel for the technical details," Sila reassured him drily, "But that's not the real reason that any of us chose to get out in these little ships and take on things a hundred times bigger. I think you already know the real reason, but let's simplify things a little..." 

Suddenly, his perceptions changed once more, though not to the odd landscape he'd encountered before. Far below he could see the thriving lands and meandering rivers on the large island, behind the increasingly-distant clifftop they'd left behind... "Just spread your wings," Sila murmured, the 'voice' seeming to come from just behind him and warm to his ear. "I won't let you fall."

"Yes..." Kyriel whispered, and he couldn't help but smile at the pure joy of flying.

The skies weren't completely unoccupied, of course, but the ariels, dragons, and Windriders in the area only looked to them oddly for a moment and didn't try to get in their way. A trickle of knowledge passed through to him as he shifted this way and that, concepts that any pilot should know on an instinctive level as surely as they knew the controls of their ship. 

"That's it," Sila encouraged, "See what we're capable of... And if you're inclined to find that 'second star and continue on til morning', you can do that too." A grin could be felt in her 'voice'. "There's a great many things yet to do and see," she added with brimming enthusiasm, "and you'll find that we're quite well-equipped to pursue them."

As an example, he felt a shifting of some part of his perceptions and one of the creatures they were passing came into a clearer and much more detailed focus. A bit disorienting, perhaps, but displaying the basic ways to change and use the sensory array that formed her 'perceptions'.

"This is incredible..." Kyriel stared, then tried that out a bit more. "There _is_ much to see and do... There are so many worlds I've never seen, entire universes I've never visited..."

"A great many indeed," Sila murmured, gently nudging their course upward and out into the first layers of space. "There's quite a few that I've never been to as well, so many sectors and corners of the map that time just didn't allow for. I'd like to see them, when you're ready."

Perception shifted once again, the star-filled darkness of space seemingly inviting as points of reference and interest are marked one by one.

"Soon enough," she sighed wistfully, "Universes beyond count, so many regions to chart and maps to make."

"Oh, yes. I would love to..." He gazed off longingly toward the stars. "Perhaps a new age of peace and exploration can finally be at hand..."

"Exploration always!" Sila chimed brightly, though turning a touch dimmer as she added, "Do not count too greatly on peace, though. War has only recently ended, there will be remnants of the vanquished causing trouble for some time to come and there will always be those more intent on destruction than building. Not to worry, though, if you're looking to avoid it I can certainly help you do it. I'm in no hurry to find myself being shot at again."

Kyriel chuckled softly. "Well, can't let things get _too_ boring, but there's no real need to rush out to fight everything in sight just now."

"I think we can find plenty of things to do that don't require the use of my onboard weapon systems," Sila replied drily, letting the ship drift in orbit about the world below and leaving it to him if he wants to move about further. "How many worlds haven't we seen? I'm sure there's at least one thing on each of them to keep us occupied. Even at a few minutes each, that amounts to a _very_ long time."

Kyriel grinned broadly. "Oh, yes." He thought to the short list of planets he'd spent any length of time on, and to the much longer list of planets he knew about but had never really visited, if at all. He, however, thought to prefer not to try flying around the narrow tunnels and caverns of Straegarx.

"Why not Straegarx?" Sila asked with a pilot's irrepressible enthusiasm. "Sounds like that'd be quite an interesting challenge! Though certainly not until you've picked up the important things," she added, "Wouldn't want to find myself damaged and you without the training to pick up where _we_ left off."

"Yeah, that can wait a while," Kyriel replied with a chuckle. "I imagine that would startle quite a few dwarves and drow to see us flying down there..."

"Isn't that half the fun?" Sila chuckled, then sighed, shifting his awareness back to his normal self with a hint of reluctance. "But you're going to have to learn a lot to get to that point. El'dari technology is obviously a must, but some others are going to be equally important along the way. Where to begin? Hmm.." she trailed off in thought.

"Well... I am eager to learn," he replied enthusiastically. "What do I need to do?"

"Then learn you shall," Sila answered with a hint of amusement and a feeling that he didn't know exactly what he was in for. "Let's go somewhere a bit more remote, and without distractions though," she sent, the ship veering sharply and coursing out into the depths of the system, approaching an asteroid field, "This should do nicely, and very little chance of anyone finding us among the rest of the drifting debris."

The craft nestled into the field and a faint thrum of the engines sets them into a gentle tumble that would suit the purpose of disguise very well in addition to Sila's own ability to mask them. 

"For now, rider of the stellar winds," she murmured soothingly, "Sleep and dream of the things which can be. I shall see that no harm comes to us here."

The faint trickle he'd felt when flying earlier, of information and knowledge seeping into his subconscious and being assimilated with gentle guidance resumed.

"Soon..." she whispered, and faded to a quiet and watchful presence at the edges of his mind.

Kyriel relaxed, closing his eyes and quietly taking in everything given to him. He wasn't wholly unfamiliar with the sort of process, the Windriders themselves having been frequent users of similar mental techniques for various purposes, but they never used technology quite on this level. He had a lot to learn, but all the time in the world.

The stars beckoned.


End file.
